


New London, Ohio, USA

by MichiganBlackhawk



Category: World War Z - Max Brooks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:54:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5999785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MichiganBlackhawk/pseuds/MichiganBlackhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>[She introduces herself as Tadamokuzai, refusing to give any other name but telling me to call her “Mich” if I like. She is on horseback, ever watchful even now, as if it is her natural state. The armor she wears is real, hand-crafted and at the same time cobbled together, as everything was for her community of survivors, who turned a rural town and farmland into one of the most well-defended zones during and after the war. Coming here is to step both back in time, and into a time that never was. My eyes continually drift to her headgear; a snug-fitting handmade cap with woollen braids and a long plait, the forehead covered with blue tye-dye and two small, pointy ears.]</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	New London, Ohio, USA

I used to work in an office, back in my old life. Sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day, more if there was overtime. Just a hamster on a wheel. But it was a steady job that I could do, stress I could handle, and it paid the bills. After a while I made enough to have some extra. And when my mom passed, she left me a pretty hefty sum. I didn’t have any debts, so I found myself, for the first time in my life, pretty well off. I was toying with the idea of very early retirement when the first reports of African rabies started cropping up. I’d given up on the mainstream corporate media by then—found a good bunch of online sources that I trusted, who talked about the things that the oligarchy didn’t want you to know about, and they were putting out the information no one else was. I tried sharing it but was written off as a loon, piled on by people who told me I was insane, so I kept quiet. I was never a social person; I was bullied as a kid because I was fat, so I never really trusted or liked anyone except a select few people. I hated crowds, hated being around _people_. I fantasized about moving somewhere where my closest neighbor was miles away. So naturally I lived in the suburbs. **[She laughs.]** I found out that living in the country is expensive.

I’d gotten into this group who call themselves the SCA. Society for Creative Anachronism. Basic idea is a bunch of smart people who love the Middle Ages and work to recreate it, the crafts, the arts, the martial activities, study the history, and so on. I’d never been a typical girl; I love martial arts and fighting and swords and so the SCA appealed to me immediately on that count, especially since there was no sexism; if you wanted to put on armor and fight with the guys, that wasn’t a problem. But it went deeper. It was about living the values of chivalry, courtesy, all those things that might never have been real but they were ideals worth emulating, and for me it meant finally getting involved, to do all the things I saw on TV for real. Ish. Yeah, your sword’s made of rattan or your rapier has a plug on the end of it, but you’re still getting to engage with someone, get a sense of what it feels like.

Word started spreading, a little while before the Great Panic, and I started preparing. Quietly, unobtrusively—I think the biggest thing I did was buy a rifle. I don’t like guns, but I had a feeling. And imagination.

**_Imagination?_**

You heard me. You know, my whole goddamn life, my parents told me that I was a daydreamer, that I needed to get my head out of the clouds, that I spent too much time in my fantasy world, that I was a ding-a-ling. And it turns out that my particular fantasy world ended up saving my life. All the time you spend studying pre-gunpowder weaponry, the military tactics of the Mongols and the samurai, riding horses because it’s awesome—all preparing me for a time when the modern world would go kaput. Drawing ideas from fiction, film, television; it’s not stupid, because those are often built on things that are real.

That’s why it was perfect that I found the SCA. Or they found me. See, the SCAdians—what they call themselves—don’t just pretend. They actually _live_ the periods they study. They learn how to make armor, how to make weapons using period methods, and so on. Even if they don’t always have the means to do it, they have the knowledge. So if modern technology goes bye bye and the average American asshole is helpless, who’s going to be able to survive? The Amish, survival-types, and the SCA.

It was just before the panic got ramped up, when more and more outbreaks were being reported and suddenly they weren’t being put down as easily. People started disappearing. Before the great hordes of screaming, shit-flinging people started tearing everything apart, we gathered and closed ranks. I took all the money I had from the bank and we all went shopping for supplies. Real supplies, not the useless crap that we knew the idiots would start swarming for.

**_Supplies like what?_ **

Cloth. Canvas for tents. Any equipment to aid in survival that didn’t require electricity or batteries or things that might run out. Rope, chains, metal tools. Whetstones. Horses, because what you really want is mobility that runs on grass and grains, not gasoline. A few of them had horses already, and I went to the barn where I used to ride to ask them how much they wanted for any horses that they were willing to sell, but the place was empty. I found the owner standing at the big sliding door that led to the arena, where the stalls were. She was just standing there, kind of pawing the door, and moaning. I didn’t fully know then what that meant, but I knew enough to know that this wasn’t normal.

I got out of the car. It was about twenty yards away. It didn’t notice me at first, not that it would have mattered if it had. I went to my trunk and opened it. Earlier that day I’d picked up some things that we were taking to the rallying point, and that included a pair of very long, very heavy crowbars. I might have been a fat kid, but by the time I hit thirty-five I was trimmed down, and after a few years in the SCA, swinging one of them was no problem.

It finally saw me and came at me, just slouching along like it had all the time in the world, its arms raised. No need to rush—I took my time, got my balance, and hefted the bar.

**_You killed her?_**

No, I killed _it_. Once the infection takes over they’re no longer human. They’re a walking disease. There’s no soul, no sentience. So you have to think of them as ‘it.’ Helps to save your sanity. I put it down, then called the others. There were a dozen horses inside, still healthy and strong, with all the tack needed to turn them into our mobility.

Over the next week, while the world turned upside down, we rallied. We gathered in small groups until we were about twenty strong, then headed south and west, away from Cleveland and Akron. We used cars and trailers for as long as we could, as the panicked lemmings jammed every goddamn road until no one could go anywhere, then put the trailers off the road, well clear so no one else would be inconvenienced, and took to horseback. We had more trouble at first from people, all these dumbshits wandering around, hollering, pulling guns on us—lemme tell you, when a fully-armed phalanx of horsed warriors responds to you pulling your little chickenshit gun on them . . . anyway. People were reacting just like I knew they would, regressing right back to barbarians, turning on each other, screaming, killing each other. **[She growls.]** I’ve always been a misanthrope; I hate most of humanity, save the individuals who earn my trust. And that also helped save my life.

**_How so?_**

The reason that so many people who weren’t trapped in huge cities died is that when human beings panic, they turn into dumb, dangerous animals. And the average American is dumber than most. Just running, all trying to jam into the same narrow roads, bringing useless crap with them, attacking and tearing at each other, it was disgusting! But that’s what you get when you have a population bred on useless reality TV and nonsense—anyway. We’d figured out early on that roads were out, and that we needed to get to clear, open ground with defensible positions as soon as possible. We were lucky that we were already outside the cities, and got the jump on everyone else. By the time things really started getting out of control, we were out into mid-Ohio, which was mostly open farmland. We’d even picked up a team of draft horses to pull a wagon with the heavier stuff.

We found an abandoned farm and stayed in the barn that night, taking full inventory. Everyone had a horse, all sound, so we were mobile. We’d figured out by then that zombies can only be taken down by a head shot or crushed skull, so we took stock of our weapons that could accomplish that. Forty guns, just as many rifles, six shotguns, a couple bows and crossbows, and a plethora of swords.

**[She pauses, showing me the sheathed katana at her hip.]**

These were my contribution. My persona—the medieval name and identity we develop—was Japanese, mainly because I was obsessed with the samurai and it was the only fighting style I knew. I had four live-steel swords already, but they weren’t **real** real, if you get my meaning. Oh, they were carbon steel, hand-forged, but not authentic. I donated the four to the group, taught them how to use them. This one here, though, was mine. One of the dojos where I used to train, the owner had a master sword. Kept it in his office. The last truly crazy, reckless thing I ever did was go into infested territory and swipe it. Almost bought it on the way out when the car I’d snatched ran out of gas and I had to run for a bit to find another one. You know how they tested these back in Japan? By slicing through dead bodies. Cutting the heads off of zombies might not have been what they were designed for, but they work as good as anything.

In addition, we had armor. Not that we had a large amount of hand-to-hand, but honestly it was helpful when we’d be patrolling or fighting to keep us from getting hurt. You know, if you’re running or in battle, you stumble and land on a rock and crack your knee, you’re dead. The armor SCAdians build is meant to be worn, used, and it’s made of leather and plastic, whatever materials are best suited to the individual. And all of them are something a zombie can’t bite through. We cobbled things together as we went, figuring out what worked and what didn’t, and finally settled in New London.

The town was deserted when we arrived. Just a few score of zombies milling around; it took us less than a day to put them down. We all decided together to have our home base on a farm just on the edge of the city limits. It was on a rise, with a clear view all around. A couple barns and a corral big enough for all the horses and then some. A foray into town brought back two trucks and enough food to last us all a month. One of the guys knew how to tap the gas tanks and the local station was still half full, so we had fuel. We raided everywhere we could, picking up a few generators, a wood stove . . . it was amazing everything we found. The farmhouse was huge; one of those century-old houses that had been taken care of by whoever had owned it. We never saw any sign of who. Amongst the bedrooms and the rooms on the first floor there was enough room for everyone; we stored supplies in the cellar and pantry and made plans for rationing until we could figure out long-term food needs. 

A few refugees came by—most had stuck to the highways and so they passed us by, but I guess some hardier souls did what we did and got away from the masses. We welcomed anyone who wanted to join us. Not everyone did—I guess some of them were just too attached to the idea that soon it would be over and everything would go back to normal. We would give them whatever we could spare—which wasn’t much—and escort them out of town to make sure they weren’t attacked.

There were still a few months until winter but the pollution was already rolling in. We cleared tree cover, which was easier once we found a couple backhoes and bulldozers, so that we had a clear view in all directions. That’s the main way we kept from being ambushed—zombies don’t run, they don’t try to sneak up. They just walk straight at you. Slowly. Given that we could see them coming hundreds of yards away, we always had plenty of time to gather defenses before they ever had a chance to gather numbers.

We were very creative fighting the swarms that came by. They were never huge; I figured it was because we were never a large enough target for them even with all the animals we had. There were miles and miles of deserted territory between us and other cities, and we were lucky that most of the small towns had been deserted pretty early on. We were very aware of how limited our ammo was, and how important it was to keep the fighting at long range whenever possible, at least for when we were vastly outnumbered. If there were just a few zombies and just as many of us, it was okay to go hand-to-hand. But we never would have tried that with even three-to-one odds.

I’d done a lot of studying on the battle tactics of the Mongols and the pre-Edo Japanese shogun and samurai. Others knew about Roman, Celtic, German, English, Russian medieval tactics and weapons. We knew that weapons like catapults would be ineffective, especially since even a huge stone in a trebuchet wouldn’t take out enough of them to justify the effort. Long-range archery fire was out, since you’d waste a billion arrows hitting bodies instead of heads, but not mid- and short-range. We already had some pretty skilled archers, and the benefit there is that you can make the ammo. Zombies don’t duck and dodge, and since they move so slowly an archer has a world of time to aim. We designed and cranked out tons of arrows with wide points; hit one in the head with it and it was just as effective, if not more, than a bullet. Didn’t have to be pure or pretty, just had to work. We used whatever material we had and were always refining our methods. Whatever worked, we kept doing it. If it didn’t work, we dropped it. There was no room for ego; if your idea didn’t work, it didn’t work. And none of us had a problem with that. We were all adult enough to deal with heading back to the drawing board.

Some of the refugees who joined us had guns and ammunition of their own, which we added to the stores. I think that’s why more people didn’t join us; we were strictly communist when it came to property. You still got to keep your own things like clothes, any personal items, and things like my sword here, or your armor—though sharing was encouraged there. But anything vital to community survival—guns, general weapons, vehicles, stuff like that, was shared. There was no American individualism tolerated—you didn’t claim or hoard stuff for yourself. Some people who wandered by refused to even consider sharing, so they were told to leave. The days of “fuck you I got mine” were over.

**_Did that cause any disagreement amongst you?_**

No. We had a different mentality. That’s the advantage of learning history, studying it instead of listening to political spin or watching junk TV. We knew that the only reason humans had survived as long as we had was cooperation, pooling resources and knowledge and focusing on the survival of the group, so that everyone survived. And we understood that sharing didn’t mean “we’re going to take everything away from you and give it to everyone else.” You come to the community with backpack that has your favorite shirt, it’s still yours. People came with intensely personal items and we respected that. But a piece of jewelry or a private journal wasn’t the same thing as a working vehicle or a weapon that represented protection for all. You wouldn’t get to come and share in our collective protection, eat our food, and get to hoard your own stockpile of necessities. And that’s not something we really had to enforce. The people who understood it stayed; the ones who couldn’t moved on.

As much as I hated people in general and used to have my own fantasies of the lone _ronin_ traveling solo, I knew that it was suicide, and considering the state of the world, stupid. I’d found as good a place as any, where I could be useful and survive by helping others survive. A lot of them were strangers at first, and new people kept coming in. I never did get too close to most of them, but they were good folks and it was the best life I could have had at that point. 

Most of us had brought a book or two with us, ones we couldn’t bear to part with, and the library in town was still standing. We had quite a collection going, and in the evenings we’d sit around a fire outside, or in the house, or even in one of the barns, and read aloud or even put on little plays. Most of us didn’t miss TV; we had generators to run electricity, so we could still watch a little TV or movies on our laptops. Anything to keep us sane, keep us going. Not one of our group at any point committed suicide; we accepted that some of us were just going to act off as a coping mechanism, and that was okay. Because any time there was an attack, no matter how looped any of us were, we were instantly all business. Didn’t matter that one of us might break into Klingon or Na’vi, so long as the zombies were falling.

**_Na’vi?_**

Yeah, you know, from that movie Avatar? That was one of my favorites. **[She points to her hat, which I learn was modeled on one of the aliens from that film.]** Did you know the director actually hired a linguist to create a real working language for that movie? True story. I’d learned how to speak it almost fluently, just because I liked it. I remember one summer after a particularly bad series of attacks, a siege really, where I kind of snapped and started speaking it constantly. Took me a while to snap out of that. One of the community, Sharon, was a psychologist, and she said it was okay, that the human mind is pretty resilient but it’s just as capable of being overloaded if stress gets too much. Again, so long as we were capable of contributing when the shit hit the fan, it didn’t matter.

**_Does that mean if you weren’t useful, the community would toss you out?_**

No, no, nothing like that. What I mean by useful is willing to help. If anyone decided that he or she was too special to work, they would have been shown the door. No one got a free ride, but no one was asked to do more than they were capable of. But if you cracked up, that wasn’t the same thing. When our community got to be over a hundred, we had a couple people who had been pushed past sanity. We took care of them, let them do whatever they could handle, if anything. Even just washing dishes or windows, or sitting and weaving rope, anything. One girl had stumbled into the outer perimeter at the start of winter. Her feet were frostbitten, her clothes nearly gone—we thought she was one of them at first because her skin was gray. Thank God we held our fire. She reacted to our flashlights and torches in a way no zombie ever would, so we took her in. She didn’t say a word for two weeks, just laid in bed, her eyes wide open when she wasn’t asleep, which wasn’t often. She was black, and we didn’t know how to care for her hair or even what style she liked, so we shaved her head at first, since her hair was matted beyond saving. We kept it cut close after that, until a time where she could tell us what she wanted. If that was ever going to happen.

Finally she started coming around, saying a few words, telling us her name. Kate. She couldn’t remember her last name. We never mentioned zombies around her, didn’t pry—we just let her come around. Sharon worked with her a lot, and by the time the war was over she was mostly recovered. I remember, though, one very dark day. We’d been almost overrun. Until then—and always afterwards—we’d always kept them at the perimeter, past the tall wooden rail fences we’d built in a cross-hatch design to keep them from climbing. They wouldn’t have stopped a normal human, but zombies are above all, dumb. Dumb and determined. We could get them to gather at certain points, where we could concentrate our fire without having to worry about being surrounded. We had a skirmish line of archers and a few with guns, then a rear line of us on horseback, to take out any who managed to get through. By then we were all expert riders, able to shoot or swing weaponry and barely break stride. Our baron—his rank in the SCA—had come up with and trained us in the tactic of using the horses to gather zombies into a tight group, and then circle them. The horses could easily keep away from them, and we were good enough to shoot in motion, so we’d just take them all down. It was beautiful.

Early on we’d had a war council of sorts, where we discussed everyone’s personal experiences and added the knowledge we’d slowly been getting from places like Radio Free Earth. You know we actually managed to pick that up? Whoever owned the farmhouse had been a ham radio buff and had the full set-up in this shed off the barn, so we were able to exchange quite a lot of intel. A few of our number had served in the military, and of course we were all military buffs of one kind or another. We knew we were facing a different kind of enemy, something more out of Beowulf than Sun Tzu. We knew that they had two great advantages over us—sheer numbers, and the fact that they were relentless. They couldn’t be scared off, they had no supply lines to break, they didn’t sleep, and would never stop.

As scary as that was, though, they also had weaknesses. They don’t use weapons. They can’t collaborate or cooperate, so their attack method would never change. They would never learn from our defensive strikes, which meant we wouldn’t have to constantly work out new strategies as they adapted to ours. There was no fear of ambush or guerrilla-style tactics. They would just keep coming straight at us in a line, slowly, without even the intelligence to duck or dodge. They weren’t truly dangerous until they were seriously up-close, in biting range. Then they would put on some speed, but once you were that close and hadn’t already bashed their heads in, it was a moot point. We realized just how much of an advantage we could turn that into, so our entire focus was not only defensive—making sure there was nowhere they could penetrate to get too close—but also what we called defensive-offensive. We figured if they were going to come to us, then we’d prepare a suitable welcome for them. We had nothing but time to train, equip, and prepare. That’s what kept us going, and also kept us focused.

A lot of the group, like me, not only studied and were fascinated by culture of the past. We wanted to _live_ them, and finally we were at a point where we could. I wasn’t afraid of dying; I followed the true student of _bushido_ , and I’d practiced Zen for years. Even the old Norse mentality, of doing what was right even if you knew that it was all going to be for nothing, drove us. We were going to die free and unafraid, fighting to the last man or woman, bellowing our names to our ancestors no matter what came. I think that’s why we didn’t have any suicides, and why so many people ended up joining us. It was a weird sense of hope, a chance to bond with others in a martial way. That’s something that most of these people had never even contemplated.

We used battle tactics of everyone from Alexander to Stonewall Jackson, and turned our little farm and the land around it into a fortification second only to some of the castles in Europe. We didn’t have huge concrete walls, but we had natural barriers and over time we built some pretty impressive walls and traps of our own. We used every second of daylight during the warmer months, especially early on when there weren’t that many of us. In winter, when the horses had their thick winter coats, we’d get proactive and send out scouting groups. We kept a count; that first winter we took out just under five thousand frozen and half-frozen zombies. Five thousand fewer enemies that would be around in spring. We dug pits, set up fence lines that would corral them into one spot; a guy who joined us the second year came up with a genius idea; we found a cement truck in town and lured a whole mass of them to a nearby quarry and managed to get probably ten thousand of those evil things into a deep stone pit. That alone would have neutralized them, since the walls were sheer and twenty feet high. I’ll never forget the sight of all those bodies just squirming around, none of them able to rise, all of them moaning, the moans echoing off the stone, and how good it felt when Lord Fitzhugh the Merciless, who still called himself Frank Katopoulos then, backed that cement truck up and turned it on. It wasn’t enough to completely bury the whole lot over their heads, but it was enough to lock them all up permanently, and even if one did manage to break free, it would never have been able to climb out. Genius. He earned his lordly title for that alone. We used that a lot afterwards; anything that could stop them, even just long enough to come along with a few scythes and finish the job.

Anyway. Back to that one day. Our defenses were holding but not as well as usual. Just too many of them and too few of us. It was our Helm’s Deep. Everyone was working magnificently; we weren’t structured like the modern military, with grunts who had a basic level of training that was almost all physical—just follow orders, do what you’re told. We had what amounted to an army of officers; each group had a leader, but we were all trained to be able to figure out what to do on our own. We all knew early on that the biggest enemy we faced wasn’t the zombies, but chaos. If we panicked, it was all over. Anyone who showed a strong propensity for panic or weakness was not allowed into battle. That’s also why over the course of the war, we lost a total of thirty people in battle. During that same time period, two hundred joined us. Still a large percentage overall, but better than even our most optimistic hopes. Eventually we converted the upper floors of the barns to living spaces just to hold everyone.

We were keeping them held off to the west, concentrating our fire there. To the east was the hill and the barricades we’d set up, and that’s where a few got in. They made it to the house, where the non-fighter women and children were. Fewer than a dozen, but they plowed right up the steps and one crashed through one of the windows. We had a few warriors that always monitored the house, but they were busy with over a dozen on the other side near the barns—we always kept them away from the barns at all costs, because not only were the horses there, but also the livestock we maintained for food. That’s how we made it through the winters.

Everyone knew how to fight hand-to-hand. That was also a priority during the times when we weren’t attacked. Basic fighting skills for everyone that was capable of standing, and even a few moves for those that weren’t so sure-footed. We designed weapons appropriate to an individual’s ability; the reality is that there are just some people who cannot fight for themselves, but we never wanted anyone to feel helpless. To feel helpless is to let in fear, despair, and panic, and those were our biggest enemies. We kept a steady supply of firearms in the house, since some of our older members couldn’t wield a sword but they were still able to aim and fire a weapon. Some of the women, too—the ones who weren’t into the martial thing but were still capable of learning. And again; we had to make sure they knew how to handle the pressure and wouldn’t start shooting wildly. The bullets and human lives were too precious to waste a single one. Everyone knew that; they had to know it, understand it, make it part of their core if they were to survive.

Kate had been coming out of her shell a little more, enough that she had been helping with the kids. I think they helped heal her as much as she took care of them. She was patient and gentle, always listened to them, and . . . she was one of the only ones who could help them through nightmares. That happened a lot with the little ones and even some of the older ones; they’d wake up screaming, crying, inconsolable or running up and down the halls, trying to hide, and Kate would just come out of her room and hold them, rocking them and whispering to them, until they calmed down. I still to this day don’t know what that girl went through or how she survived, but she made me realize how resilient the human spirit is. In some of us.

When the zombies broke through the window, Brooke, who was only seven, was in the main room. No one knows how she got there; when we were under serious attack the kids were all moved to the cellar under the house, because it had a back exit we’d dug out. If the house was overrun, they could escape through a tunnel into the culvert behind the house, which we’d fortified and built up, giving them a clear shot to open space where they could run, get some distance. But Brooke was still in the house when the group burst in. Normally Kate was down with the kids, not only to help keep them calm but to keep from traumatizing her further; a month after she’d started to open up she’d seen a few zombies coming across the field and just the sight of them had sent her right back into catatonia. So we kept her as far away from them as we could. That night, I don’t know what happened, but she wasn’t in the cellar either. I was in the yard near the house, picking off strays, when I saw the mob break in the front. I put my bow away and grabbed my gun—it was actually one of those P90 kinds that they had on Stargate Atlantis. Another case of being a geek coming in handy. I rode right up to the porch and killed the half that hadn’t gotten in the house. They were just standing there so it was easy. We always had enough light because in addition to our stores, we’d modified a lot of pre-electric lights to make sure we could always see what we were doing. Zombies don’t call off an attack just because it’s night. It was darker outside but the inside was fully lit, so I could see it all as Kate came into the main room of the farmhouse with one of my swords. **[She smiles, her gaze moving once again into a distance that I cannot begin to contemplate.]** Have you ever seen any Kurosawa movies? Toshiro Mifune would have had to bow to her that night. She came into the room and saw Brooke running from five of them, and I swear to Eywa that ten seconds later they were all down. She moved in ways I could only dream of, perfectly in that state of No Mind that I’ve spent a _lifetime_ trying to get to. Those things never had a chance. The next morning, when we finally managed to get everything under control, we found heads that were sliced through at perfect angles. As if they were bamboo practice bundles. I’m no forensics expert, but we did have a doctor in the community, thank God, and he was able to give us a fairly good reenactment.

She’d watched. All those months where she’d been locked up inside herself, we thought, she’d been watching. Listening. Learning, I think, even in spite of herself. And yet she’d never actually done any of the moves I saw her pull off with perfection. I don’t know if it was instinct or what, but she took down six zombies in a few seconds and didn’t get a scratch on her. And she never has figured out how she did it. Even now she doesn’t know.

That was the biggest lesson I took from that time, the turning point of my life. That humans can be horrible, awful creatures, as selfish and violent and all-consuming as the zombies they became, but we are also capable of amazing feats of survival and adaptation, and of kindness and living the values that the SCAdians were trying to live pre-war, and fully live during the war. We were never perfect people, and that was never the goal. But it was a perfect test to see if humanity could be better than we were, if we could sustain a community built on love and trust and mutual protection, teach martial values and make them part of life, to empower people, make them smarter, better, more cunning, more aware. That . . . if we could last through the storm, outlive the zombies, survive, that the human generations that came after wouldn’t be stupid like their predecessors. More connected to the land, to each other, less selfish, less materialistic, more mature. Yeah. A mature people. More interested in the things that matter, not just day-to-day living, but understanding how close we came to the end, and how important it is to be smart, to not repeat mistakes, and not to waste time with blame but to say that these things led to this, these actions caused this, so let’s not do it again, and now, once and for fucking all, when someone sounds a warning, don’t just ignore it.

All of this works on a small level. But once you reach billions and billions of assholes . . . well, let’s just say if humanity ever gets her numbers back up to that level again, she’d better damn well learn from the past, or else the next one could be the last. But then, maybe self-extinction is hardwired into us. We are a stupid species, and I’m still a misanthrope, shaking my head at the insanity of the _sawtute_.

But I guess even so I still have hope. We’re still here. We built something made to last, and even if it’s just down to the core group who started it . . . hell. Maybe we’re supposed to keep the dream alive. Or something stupid like that.

**[She turns back to the old farmhouse that withstood so much. Now, despite all of her efforts to keep the community together, there are fewer than twenty people still living here.]**


End file.
